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The Heart of God: Prayers of Rabindranath Tagore
Awarded the Noble Prize for Literature in 1913. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is considered the most important poet of modern-day India. He was also a distinguished author, educator, social reformer, and philosopher.
This inspiring collection of Tagore's poetry represents his "simple prayers of common life." Each of the seventy-seven prayers is an eloquent affirmation of the divine in the face of both joy and sorrow. Like the Psalms of David, they transcend time and speak directly to the human heart.
This inspiring collection of Tagore's poetry represents his "simple prayers of common life." Each of the seventy-seven prayers is an eloquent affirmation of the divine in the face of both joy and sorrow. Like the Psalms of David, they transcend time and speak directly to the human heart.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 27, 2022
DNF
Some of these prayers are extremely beautiful:
...Let Your love, like stars, shine in the
darkness of my sleep and dawn in my awakening. ...
But mostly, this collection bores me silly. Tagore was awarded the Nobel for his writings in 1913, and I am not diminishing the importance of this accomplishment. But I can't stay awake while reading this! It's the style -- so passive.
Some of these prayers are extremely beautiful:
...Let Your love, like stars, shine in the
darkness of my sleep and dawn in my awakening. ...
But mostly, this collection bores me silly. Tagore was awarded the Nobel for his writings in 1913, and I am not diminishing the importance of this accomplishment. But I can't stay awake while reading this! It's the style -- so passive.
June 29, 2012
It's Tagore - what's not to love? Clearly, one of the most overlooked poets/artists in western culture. He is to India who Dante is to Italy.
April 9, 2018
Be still, my heart, these great trees are prayers.
I rediscovered Rabindranath Tagore, and I love his poems. This was a short collection of his poetry. I loved how religious they are - hopeful? Confident? in this existence of his God.
Notable ones were:
- Trees (just one line, reproduced above)
- My Greetings (My Guide, I am a wayfarer on an endless road, my greetings of a wanderer to You.)
- Hold My Hand (I love the repetition of "Hold My Hand", though I felt it could be emphasised more)
- This is My Prayer: Give me the supreme confidence of love, this is my prayer - the confidence that belongs to life in death, to victory in defeat, to the power hidden in the frailest beauty, to that dignity in pain which accepts hurt but disdains to return it.
- Time to Sit Quietly
- The Rebel: Rebelliously, I put out the light in my house, and Your sky surprised me with its stars.
- Not Altogether Lost (like "Hold My Hand", I liked the repetition).
- The Solitary Wayfarer: You are the solitary wayfarer in this deserted street. Oh, my only Friend, my best Beloved, the gates are open in my house. Do not pass by like a dream.
- The Grasp of Your Hand
- The Fullness of Peace
- The Stream of Life: I feel my limbs made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
- Tears of the Earth: We rejoice, O God, that the tears of the earth keep her smiles in bloom.
- Let My Country Awake: Into that haven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
- Worship: From the words of the poet, people take what meanings please them; yet their last meaning points to You.
November 9, 2019
I am reluctant to give any book a 5-star rating. How could I do otherwise with Tagore's The Heart of God, seeing the universality and beauty of this collection of prayers? In these prayers, the Sacred is not a prosaic deity distant from us, foreign to us, but the lyrical beauty moving among us, as intimate with us as we are to ourselves.
January 16, 2026
Mission 2026: Binge reviewing all previous Reads, I was too slothful to review back when I read them
Reading this book felt less like reading a book and more like overhearing a mind kneeling in public, unafraid of being seen in its vulnerability. These are not prayers in the narrow, doctrinal sense; they are conversations stretched toward the infinite, spoken in a voice that refuses both piety and despair. What moved me most, returning to them after time, was Tagore’s insistence on intimacy with the divine—God here is not distant, punitive, or abstract, but restless, breathing, and implicated in human joy and suffering alike. There is a quiet audacity in how Tagore speaks to God, sometimes pleading, sometimes questioning, sometimes simply offering silence shaped into language. The simplicity of the prose is deceptive; beneath it runs a profound metaphysical confidence that faith need not erase doubt to remain sincere. I found myself slowing down, not out of reverence but because the rhythms demand it—each line feels calibrated to still the reader, to pull attention inward rather than upward. Unlike many devotional texts, this collection does not promise comfort as a reward; instead, it suggests that surrender is an ongoing practice, a way of learning how to be porous to the world without being destroyed by it. Reading this now, in an age that often mistakes noise for conviction, Tagore’s prayers feel radical in their gentleness, insisting that spiritual strength lies not in certainty but in openness. The book doesn’t instruct so much as it invites, asking the reader to sit with longing, humility, and wonder without rushing to closure. I didn’t come away with answers, but with a recalibrated sense of attention—a reminder that prayer, at its best, is not a performance of belief but an act of listening, where language becomes a vessel for trust rather than control.
Most recommended.
Reading this book felt less like reading a book and more like overhearing a mind kneeling in public, unafraid of being seen in its vulnerability. These are not prayers in the narrow, doctrinal sense; they are conversations stretched toward the infinite, spoken in a voice that refuses both piety and despair. What moved me most, returning to them after time, was Tagore’s insistence on intimacy with the divine—God here is not distant, punitive, or abstract, but restless, breathing, and implicated in human joy and suffering alike. There is a quiet audacity in how Tagore speaks to God, sometimes pleading, sometimes questioning, sometimes simply offering silence shaped into language. The simplicity of the prose is deceptive; beneath it runs a profound metaphysical confidence that faith need not erase doubt to remain sincere. I found myself slowing down, not out of reverence but because the rhythms demand it—each line feels calibrated to still the reader, to pull attention inward rather than upward. Unlike many devotional texts, this collection does not promise comfort as a reward; instead, it suggests that surrender is an ongoing practice, a way of learning how to be porous to the world without being destroyed by it. Reading this now, in an age that often mistakes noise for conviction, Tagore’s prayers feel radical in their gentleness, insisting that spiritual strength lies not in certainty but in openness. The book doesn’t instruct so much as it invites, asking the reader to sit with longing, humility, and wonder without rushing to closure. I didn’t come away with answers, but with a recalibrated sense of attention—a reminder that prayer, at its best, is not a performance of belief but an act of listening, where language becomes a vessel for trust rather than control.
Most recommended.
July 15, 2014
Gorgeous, but I seem to have only scratched the surface...I need more.
June 24, 2016
If you think you can't appreciate the prayers of someone who practices a different faith than you do, think again. Tagore has a humility and insight that touches the heart.
March 2, 2018
This immensely valuable set of prayers have their own unique intimate trope. They lend real insight into the authors spirit and are strong evidence for why he deservedly was awarded the Nobel.
January 7, 2024
Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of a hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of a hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.
January 31, 2025
Fantastic. Spirituality at its finest. Tagore has discovered a treasure that all of us seek our whole lives - a relationship with the Divine; the God of the Universe. Beautifully woven with images of nature and humanity, this collection of poems will infuse wisdom and truth into your soul. Absolutely stunning.
December 27, 2019
Simply wonderful
November 25, 2021
A nice collection. Didn’t quite resonate with me but there’s some great stuff in here.
January 27, 2026
Forever friend
I was very young when I first read Gitanjali and it was a feeling as if somebody was talking to me. I still have the same feeling today...
I was very young when I first read Gitanjali and it was a feeling as if somebody was talking to me. I still have the same feeling today...
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April 17, 2011I really wanted this book because I love the often-quoted poem by Tagore that begins, "It is for the union of you and me that there is light in the sky.." However, I hated the poems in this book. The language was not flowing, every single one was about "You," (God), and I just didn't find that they had universal appeal. I would love to know where the above poem is published.
December 1, 2007
A fantastic collection; excellent and judicious editing. I read and re-read this collection, almost daily.
April 9, 2016
Beautiful poem prayers.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews